Chapter 422 - Roiling Grudge (2/2)
Xiao Chen smiled. With a shake of his head, he slowly led her away. With one step after another, they slowly limped away from the center of the square, leaving everyone else staring with shock and incredulity. “Damn it!” The Great Immortal from Hell spat and Ye Wuxin beside him no longer placid and composed.
They moved as one, breaking from the formation of the defenders and lunged at Xiao Chen with all the speed they could muster. Xiao Chen sensed them approaching and stopped in his tracks. He was too weak to defend himself, nevermind another companion. But Li Muxue merely muttered, “D-don’t worry…” With a flail of her sleeve, she sent forth a magical bolt that struck both men in the chest and they crashed several yards away, vomiting mouthfuls of blood.
The defenders began reeling with fear. No one could believe what was happening. The Divine Corpse was operating against the wishes of its masters!? They were still coping with the panic of losing their most powerful instrument when they heard a dull groan that sounded like a monster snarling. It was the Corpse King! It was shuddering violently, as if trying to free itself from the influence of its masters too! “Dammit!” Ye Wuxin cursed, “Are they all running out of control now?!” He slapped a runic talisman on the forehead of the Corpse King and finally it calmed down.
Xiao Chen and the Desecrated Li Muxue slowly hobbled away from the battlefield, under the dubious but silent stares of both armies of defenders and invaders when suddenly, a powerful aura, cold as death and as powerful as the breaking of a dam, flooded the entire Ridge. Li Muxue jerked her head in its direction and cried, “Oh no! The Mistress is summoning me!”
Xiao Chen felt it too. It was Red Sleeve! “Calm down,” he cried, “Come with me! You don’t belong here! Not to them or to anyone else!”
“I-I’m sorry… I cannot… I cannot go with you.” Li Muxue shoved him aside and darted back to the sarcophagus. As she clambered once more inside, Xiao Chen cried, “Muxue!” With his Immortal-override Steps, he raced as fast as he could towards her, but to no avail; the green sarcophagus slammed its lid shut and took off into the sky before he could reach her.
It sped across the sky, finally becoming a single dot in the distance before it completely vanished. Xiao Chen let loose a feral howl, his eyes bulging to the point of bursting and his hair lashing over his face.
“RED SLEEVE! AND YOU LOT OF THE CORPSE REFINERY SECT!”
His thunderous roar echoed across the battlefield, bouncing off whatever structures still standing that no one could miss the anger, frustration, and hatred in his voice. The Malicious Grudge in him swelled and his left eye turned red again. On his flank, the army of invaders was all but beaten; their morale was so low that they could no longer mount another assault. Suddenly, before they knew it, the air turned blood-red around them; a scarlet mist had shrouded the battlefield.
The scarlet mist covered the entire battlefield and in the blink of an eye, hundreds of Corpse Puppets, all still greasy with blood dripping off their limbs, appeared out of the thick air! The sudden appearance of the Corpse Puppets in their midst took the invaders of the Orthodox Path by surprise. These were hardly the common Corpse Puppets they have been fighting against, but Blood Corpses, one of the more formidable killing contrivances of the Corpse Refinery Sect.
The Blood Corpses stood in the path leading down the slopes of the Ridge, barring the invaders’ way of retreat; the grisly sight of their rotting flesh and flayed skin only made them all the more grotesquely hideous under the bright sunlight.
Even in the daylight, the atmosphere at the Ridge was cold. Not because of the altitude, but because of the deathly aura gave off by the hundreds and thousands of Corpse Puppets looming menacingly around the invaders. Their Rancorous Qi swirled everywhere like ghost-like apparitions sending shivers down the spines of the mages that some cowered behind the backs of their Elders and leaders.
But amidst the restless angst and confusion, no one realized what was happening to Xiao Chen. His breathing grew erratic and his right eye too slowly turned red. Would that anyone saw the flow of the Rancorous Qi emanating from the Blood Corpses, they would have been able that the foul and evil aura was flowing nowhere else, but roiling into Xiao Chen through his opened chest wound.
The battle broke out again, only this time it was the mages of the Orthodox Path taking heavy losses. Banners fell and men crumbled, bloodied and battered. Fueled and enlivened by their rich Malicious Grudge, the legion of Blood Corpses decimated the ranks of the invaders. These were former disciples, students, and acolytes of the Corpse Refinery Sect forcibly doomed to be Corpse Puppets alive, either by just punishment or wrongful judgment. The process of being turned into these mindless abominations alive was so painful that they incurred the feeling of rage and hate so strong that their Malicious Grudge was richer and thicker than common Corpse Puppets. This made them so powerful that they could easily kill a mage with the Nascent Soul Realm with a lift of a finger.
The invaders were all locked in gritting battles. Not for taking the Ridge, but their own survival. Elders, Mentors, and Leaders of the Orthodox Path fared better than their younger counterparts. Extensive battle experiences worth much more than promising and remarkable talent in the face of battle. Zuoqiu Yang swung and pierced at every enemy that crossed his path. Yet none of his strokes seemed to work; the enemies just would not fall. And with each blow he dealt, Zuoqiu Yang felt his confidence dipping by one bit.
Even with her Autumn Water, Xiaoyue could do no more than to kill only one or two of these Blood Corpses. The worse could be said for Su Zimu’s Heavenly Thirteen Swords which could hardly even penetrate the strong and sturdy hides of these Blood Corpses. At another corner, there was Yu Yifeng, desperately defending himself with the Dance of the Arcing Rainbow. He was locked in a stalemate against a pair of Blood Corpses trying to strike him down, but he was tiring and his enemies were not.
In the chaos of the battle, no one save for Su Lianyue, still perched on her hiding place amongst the trees, was looking at Xiao Chen. A dark smog hung over his face like a many-layered mask of death and he lowered his head, sniggering devilishly like a deranged man being possessed by a demon.
A Blood Corpse saw him and lunged at him. Still giggling vilely, he hardly paid any heed to it. But when it reached before him, there was the sickening crunch of bones and flesh and the spattering of blood. He had lanced his arm through the chest of the monster like how the Desecrated Li Muxue had done to him earlier.
Immediately, the body of the Blood Corpse began to wilt like a dead plant with its life completely bled dry. In mere seconds, it became a dry, blackened husk. A parched and shriveled mummy.
Xiao Chen tossed aside the dried husk like he would a handful of filth. Then he snickered again in evil glee, his hand raising towards a faraway Blood Corpse and magically drew it to him before he speared his arm through it again. Several heartbeats later, this too became a dried and shriveled mummy.
This continued with the killing of more than a half-dozen of Blood Corpses only people began to realize what he was doing. Ye Wuxin saw the dried husks lying ignominiously on the cobblestones of the square like pieces of dried wood and debris that were formerly his prized Blood Corpses and gasped frightfully, “IMPOSSIBLE! How…”
“Heh heh heh heh…”
Everything stopped; the clangor of battle, the cries and howls of anguish, and all other noises came to a rest. A dreadful and cadaverous silence lulled across the square as the fighting came to a sudden halt. Everyone stopped in their tracks and the Blood Corpses all paused at once. There was only the chilly and macabre sense of death lingering in the mists that shrouded the battlefield aside for Xiao Chen’s sinister cackle ringing through the fog like the bells of death…